Friday, May 4, 2007

Bangalore is thirsty and inundated with waste it can't deal with, but money goes into projects that deal with transport infrastructure.'While pumping and transporting 810 million litres per day (mld) water through an elevation of 500 metres, almost 30 to 40 per cent is lost.' And the amount of unaccounted for water is on a rise: from 29 per cent in 1995-96 to 39 per cent in 2003-04. To maintain pumping, 65 per cent of the Rs 353-crore budget of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) is earmarked for electricity charges. While this is not enough to sustain the water supply target of 100 litres per capita per day (lpcd), another Rs 3,384 crore — the Cauvery IV scheme — is being implemented to supply an additional 500 mld water. In the last three and a half decades, Bangalore has already spent over Rs 1,710 crore in sourcing its water from Cauvery, which is bound to become more and more expensive in future. (snip)